


A Doctor's Day

by estelraca



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Doctors & Physicians, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-01
Updated: 2016-04-01
Packaged: 2018-05-30 10:48:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6420781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/estelraca/pseuds/estelraca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joly's first day as a resident starts out poorly and declines from there, with a strange epidemic and a stranger man throwing everything he thought he knew into disarray.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Doctor's Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [icandrawamoth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/icandrawamoth/gifts).



Joly's first day as a resident starts terribly.

He should have expected it, really. When you set your alarm for an hour early and still wake up fifteen minutes late because somehow the cat made off with the phone bearing your alarm in the dead of night without waking you... well, it's the kind of omen that Joly tries not to take too seriously but that he really can't bring himself to completely ignore, either.

He still manages to make it in on time, and _without_ sacrificing either breakfast, his morning shower, or any of his vitamins. Granted, it's a very _quick_ shower, and breakfast isn't really complete and balanced, but it's the thought that counts.

It's a good thing he ate, too, because the first thing that greets him on the floor is the human wreckage of a multi-car collision. He handles it well—his specialty is trauma, after all. Blood has never bothered him, and as long as he has the equipment needed to relieve the pain his patients are suffering, neither do the myriad, creative ways that bodies can be broken.

(He thinks, sometimes, that maybe he remembers other lifetimes, other situations where he did the best he could and it wasn't nearly enough, the tools at hand weren't nearly capable enough, but all those half-glimpsed fantasies do is drive him on to better skills.)

In the midst of the accident victims, the seizure patients start trickling in.

Diazepam is a doctor's best friend, and Joly thanks any divine beings that may be listening for Dr. Mirai, who refused to let anyone pass her rotation who couldn't instantly calculate a reasonably safe dose for patients who present in _status epilepticus_.

One seizing patient is a natural part of the job; two seizing patients is a bad day; six in the space of four hours, when all of them had been well-controlled prior to today, makes Joly wonder if he should be contacting AMMI about some kind of potential outbreak.

Before he can get enough of a break to consider pursuing that line of thought further, Joly finds a strange man in a very... _eclectic_ suit peering at one of his now-stable patients through some kind of complicated glass instrument.

“Not the Sontarans this time, I don't think... there's something almost a bit like the haemovores here, but I don't think that's quite it...”

Clearing his throat doesn't cause the strange man to turn to look at him, so Joly taps the stranger on the shoulder. “Excuse me?”

“Certainly. People should always be given another chance. If they repeatedly make the same mistake, well, that's a different matter entirely, but everyone should be guaranteed at least one second opportunity, I think.” The man turns to study Joly, smiling encouragingly. His right eye is oddly magnified by his strange headpiece; his left is made smaller, providing a bizarre, disconcerting image.

“I'm not...” Joly shakes his head, thrown completely off his guard by the strange man's response. “Who are you, and what are you doing to my patient?”

“Oh! Right.” Pulling the device off his head, the stranger holds it out proudly, revealing a mop of shaggy black hair and pretty (and appropriately sized) gray eyes that study Joly intently. “I'm the Doctor, of course.”

“No, you're not.” Joly would smile, if he weren't so tired after how the day has gone. “I may not have been here long, but the first thing I did was memorize all the doctors. _You_ are not one of them.”

“Oh, no, I'm certainly not _a_ doctor.” Waving a hand as though that were obvious, the stranger continues to smile. “I'm _the_ Doctor. At least right now, I am. I think I may have been other things, long before I was a Gallifreyan, and there are most assuredly other Doctors out there, though I do try quite hard not to cross my own time-stream.”

Joly blinks, beginning to get a suspicion about exactly what ward he needs to deliver this wanderer to. “Sir, if you don't mind following me—”

The man sighs. “Certainly. I don't want to cause you distress or trouble. But there's something very odd going on, most likely extra-terrestrial in origin, and you're going to want me very shortly.”

Yes, Joly _definitely_ knows where this very articulate and handsome man needs to be delivered. “Come on. I want you to follow me.”

“Ah, well. Telling the truth was worth a shot. I suppose it only works well for UNIT or others who already know what's going on, though.” A hopeful smile touches the man's face. “I don't suppose you know about UNIT?”

“I know about a lot of different units. Including the one we're going to.” The man doesn't fight Joly taking his arm and leading him away.

“But nothing about the organization that calls itself UNIT? Or perhaps Torchwood? I could tolerate being involved with them, if I had to.” The man frowns. “Surely you'll be familiar with _one_ of those. You _are_ an Englishman, aren't you?”

Joly narrows his eyes, but the man doesn't seem to be teasing him intentionally. “I'm Canadian. Quebecois, to be precise. And _you_ , my dear sir, have a decided French accent yourself.”

“I do, don't I?” The man smiles, though it is a _different_ smile than the ones that have come before—a soft smile, dripping with melancholy as his voice trails off. “I suppose that's what happens when I decide to try being human for a bit. Living chronologically... sometimes, after everything's been so very, very hard for so very, very long, it seems like such a good idea. I chose somewhere that I could help, could make a difference in little ways for a few years... somewhere with hope and struggle and _people_ , the very best of people, though you can find that everywhere, in any time...”

Joly shivers as the stranger's accent becomes more pronounced, the wistful melancholy twining thicker and thicker in his voice.

“Joly, you said your name was?” The man's eyes focus on Joly, his tone becoming more contemplative as he dons a brighter smile. “I knew a Joly, back then. He was a doctor, too.”

The shiver comes again, hard, violent, and Joly finds his fingers tightening where they are holding the man's arm. (He remembers a man who spoke like this, though he did not have this man's face. He _remembers_ , but he has only seen and spoken with the man in dreams, so Joly must be mistaken.) “Come on. Let's get you back—”

“You can call me Combeferre, if you want. If you prefer it to Doctor. I did so like the name and the people.” Combeferre's smile vanishes between one step and the next. “But I'm not crazy, and you don't want to take me away from this ward. Something is here, attacking these people—feeding off them. They've not only been having seizures, they're all afflicted with a steadily worsening anemia, a very mild hypothermia that you have no explanation for, and a very mild rash on the chest that has been steadily worsening.”

Joly blinks, coming to a sudden stop. The first three data points Combeferre could have picked up from the charts, if he has been wandering for long enough. The rash is something that Joly hadn't actually been convinced he was seeing, and isn't something he's recorded. How...?

“You're trying to protect your patients—to be a good doctor.” The man's mouth turns up into the gentlest smile Joly thinks he has ever seen. “That's all I'm trying to do right now, too—be a good Doctor. So if you would permit me just a few more minutes to convince you I'm not mad, which will likely be as simple as you placing a stethoscope on my chest and listening to my two hearts beat, I would—”

The creature comes out of nowhere, slimy tentacles flailing for purchase on Combeferre's arms.

Joly should probably run away screaming. It's what any sane person would do when confronted with something that is decidedly extraterrestrial and decidedly angry.

Joly has never been the kind to act completely in concert with expectations, though, and this thing is threatening a man in Joly's care. A man who is his _patient_ , really, or at least who _could_ be his patient, and Joly does not take threats to his patients well.

The clipboard that Joly grabbed shatters as he slams it down with all his force on the top part of the creature. Since it doesn't appear to have a head, he can't aim the blow better than that. His attack still seems to be successful, though, because Combeferre is able to break free of the suddenly-slack tentacles that had been holding him.

Grabbing Joly's hand in his, Combeferre drags him down the nearest cross-hallway at a dead run.

There is a _lot_ of running in the forty-five minutes that follow. Joly doesn't think he's ever run so far in his life, really. (Not in _this_ life, at least, but the longer he is with Combeferre, the more he thinks that maybe, just maybe, some of his dreams are more than dream.)

Joly still isn't sure exactly _what's_ happening when everything comes to a head. There are aliens, apparently. At least two species worth of aliens, because Combeferre is an alien and there are also the tentacle-creatures who are apparently trying to use Joly's patients as some kind of intergalactic radio set and everything is _terrible_ but it doesn't matter.

They're finding answers, they're fighting back, and if Joly has his way, no one is going to die.

“Sometimes...” Combeferre smiles at him, their fingers glancing together as they peer over the barricade of medical supplies that is currently protecting them from the leader of the aliens. “Sometimes, we get lucky, and everyone lives.”

“That's the point of a Doctor, right?” Joly grins back at Combeferre. “To try to make sure that everyone lives!”

“Or at least dies with dignity. But today, for Joly and Combeferre...” Combeferre crouches down. “For the Amis and the Doctors, I'd say it's about time everyone lived.”

The aliens are poisoned by diazepam. Joly finds himself once more thanking Dr. Mirai for life-saving teaching skills as he injects the last tentacle monster with the toxic dose and watches it slowly decompose into a puddle of greenish slush. He bites back any jokes about valium having a relaxing effect on even aliens, seeing from Combeferre's face that now isn't the time.

Combeferre sighs as he watches the puddle spread. “Well... I suppose not _everyone_ lived, but at least _most_ people did.”

“The innocent have.” Joly shoves a hand back through his hair. “That's what matters most, isn't it?”

“It's certainly one of the important things.” Combeferre tilts his head, studying Joly intently. Then he reaches out, grabbing Joly's hand and tugging him down the hall. “Come with me. There's something I need to show you.”

What he needs to show Joly is apparently a blue box crammed into a broom closet, the box looking like it would have been at home in a 1960's British television series. “Um... I don't...”

Combeferre doesn't give Joly a chance to protest before dragging him _into_ the probably-just-one-person box... and into a brand new world.

“I... but...” Joly stares around in confusion.

Combeferre smiles. “Go ahead. Say it.”

Joly blinks, frowns, and puts his hands on his hips. “You, Doctor Two-Heart, have a spatial anomaly here, with more space being present within this box than is reasonably accounted for by the outside dimensions.”

Combeferre's grin grows, and he gives a bright, eager laugh. “I _knew_ I liked you from the moment we started talking. You're entirely right. This is a TARDIS—my spaceship, basically.”

“Oh.” Joly nods, a sinking feeling settling into his stomach. “Does that mean... you're leaving?”

“I should be. Messy questions that people don't _actually_ want the answers to just make me... upset, usually.” Combeferre approaches the beautiful central console, which is glowing in blue and green and white colors. “But... I wouldn't be amiss to taking on passengers.”

“Oh. Uh...” Joly gestures back towards the hospital. “It's still kind of my first day, so I probably shouldn't leave. People are counting on me. Plus I'm sure alien planets are filled with microbes that wouldn't like my little human body.”

Combeferre tilts his head. “You'd be surprised what the little human body can do. Plus, I'm not just _the_ Doctor... I'm _a_ doctor, nice and official. At least by 1830's Parisian terms. Oh, and because I think I forgot to mention it... the TARDIS also travels in time.”

Joly takes a step closer to the central console. “So... theoretically...”

“Theoretically I could bring you right back here, to this very second. I can't guarantee that's _actually_ what will happen, but I would certainly try.” Combeferre studies Joly, his expression once more grim and serious. “Assuming you want to come, Joly. I would never force you to.”

“I'd like to. Come.” Joly swallows, allowing the half-remembered dreams to rise. “And maybe... possibly... we'll find some other travelers. Seven other travelers, at least...”

Combeferre smiles, taking a step forward to grab Joly's hand. “I would certainly be amenable to searching. I think nothing would make me happier, in all honesty.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Joly grins, taking a step toward the central console. “There's a whole universe waiting out there for us to explore!”

Combeferre grins, too, keeping one of Joly's hands tight between his as the TARDIS roars to life around them.

This isn't exactly the way he had thought his first day on the job would go—and they're going to have to stop by his apartment, so he can pick up Mussie the alarm-stealing cat—but overall, Joly decides it hasn't been too bad.


End file.
